If he wins a boxing heavyweight title he will do what has never been done and do it as an African refugee that didn’t start training until his late teens/20s. It is an incredible story and will make a great movie.
GofiSH is an 06. He’s not that new.
Jack Dempsey’s life story would make a good movie.
Guy from sub-optimal background becomes successful athlete.
Crazy, never heard of such a thing before. Especially in fighting.
What title does Anthony Joshua have again?
No denying he has a great success story in his life but you’ve gone off the deep end with this “greatest” nonsense.
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Jesse Owens.
His story and also performing as a black in Berlin during the Olympics when Hitler was in attendance
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@HARLEM thanks for pulling that up. I’ve actually been around longer but I am not sure when accounts/emails etc were reset. Never posted much. I could swear I followed rickson v funaki here and possibly Royce v Wallid before that but who knows that was 25years ago now. Bottome line is this place has brought me a lot of laughter over the years. I’m probably misremembering but before mma.tv and submissionfighting.net wasn’t this nhb.com?
I wouldn’t worry about proving things. If you want to send me a pm with old emails or usernames, I can look them up and verify it for you. But beyond that, I think @chris just needs to give you access to the OG since you hadn’t posted in a bit when we made it login only accounts.
None of the above.
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I’d add Giannis Antetokounmpo.
His parents were illegal immigrants from Nigera to Athens and had no work papers.
He and his brothers were born in Greece but that didn’t entitle to them to citizenship. The family was effectively stateless for a couple of decades and he and his brothers sold cheap goods to tourists on Athens streets. With no papers, they couldn’t travel elsewhere without getting blocked from coming back.
The Milwaukee Bucks are a small market team and not an attractive free agent destination. In 1971 they won their one and only championship thanks to their young draftee Kareem Abdul-Jabbar …who left as soon as he could for the brighter lights of Los Angeles.
Exactly 50yrs after their first championship, Giannis scored 50 points in the deciding game to bring Milwaukee a championship, despite a nasty looking leg injury in the early rounds of the playoffs.
People on their way to work the next morning were interrupted by the 7footer driving around the streets randomly to show the NBA trophy. Their is footage of him that made the news of him at a drive-through with the NBA trophy ordering 50 pieces of chicken to celebrate the 50 points on the 50th anniversary.
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To be less of a joking dickhead, I will say if Francis wins a HW title down the road (since it won’t be with Joshua) then that will be an incredible mountain peak to top off an amazing rags to riches (and glory) story.
I just feel there are lots of athletes out there who have overcome similar life circumstances and had success in their sport. Giannis has to be a similar kind of story but he has had way greater sustained success. If Francis became a multi-year champ well that is something else but he’s sadly too old for that I’d think.
There are some others listed in here who overcame some massive obstacles in life during different times too.
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Jim Thorpe
Mike Tyson
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Francis has a good story, don’t get me wrong.
But many seem to neglect to mention is that while he was born in a harsh environment, he himself is genetic gold.
It’s ok to have hardship, if you are a literal super human.
How did the others do that travelled to France on the same boat as Francis?
i thought he beat Fury and knocked him down Amazing for his first boxing match losing asplit decision to undefeated Fury
It’s not just the rags to riches story. He will have done what most would have said is impossible - win heavyweight titles in mma and boxing. And it wouldn’t be a one punch thing. He will have done it against fury and Joshua. @Steven_McTowelie
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I taught Kirik how to write in 1992. He never quite picked it up though
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Jim Thorpe
Jesse Owens
I dunno.
Bethe Correia was an accountant in Brazil, and then she jumped over that wire in the UFC Octagon.
Great sports story right there IMO.
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What about that MMA fighter that ended up winning the tournament and faced his brother in the final ,
It was at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic city.
Also in that tournament were:-
Kurt Angle, Nate Marquardt, Anthony Johnson, Roan Carneiro, Yves Edwards.